Some Things Change
by KrazzeeAJ1701
Summary: Harry finds an unexpected guest in his apartment. Implied Harry/Female Ryder
1. Some Things Change

He watched her, his eyes carefully assessing the woman dozing on his couch for any injuries. Knowing Elliot Ryder as well as he does, it was more of a necessity than a habit considering how often she'd let herself go untreated for one thing or another. She'd lost weight since her last visit to the Nexus, about a kilogram or two. There was also an angry red line starting at her left ear and running along her jaw. Judging by the look of it, she hadn't let Lexi patch it up and it was sure to scar. Harry has no clue how she does it, carries the weight of the whole cluster on her shoulders with a smile on her face, but it's taking its toll on her.

"It's rude to stare," she whispered, her eyes still closed.

"Says the woman who broke into my apartment," Harry chuckled.

Elliot's deep blue eyes blinked open and she looked up at him. "That implies that I don't already know the code, which I do. You should probably change that, by the way. I mean, your graduation date from med school is in your file. I don't know whether to call you an idiot or a narcissist."

"Technically, I'm a bit of both," he said with a smile.

"That why you left the Tempest, didn't want me to outshine you?" she asked. The question was delivered playfully enough but he knew he had to tread lightly. He had made the choice to trade jobs with Lexi quickly but it was far from easy.

Harry let out a sigh. "I think we both know the answer to that."

"I really don't. One second, you're chomping at the bit to get out there and the next, you wanna stay on the ark."

"With Eli," Harry reminded her.

"Lexi could've looked after him and we both know it."

Elias, Elliot's twin, has been in a coma in the cryobay since day zero, a malfunction with his stasis pod forcing the medical team to wake him up the old-fashioned way. Harry told himself that it was a valid enough reason to stay behind but Elliot saw the move for what it was; a cop out.

"I'm too…"

"If you say 'old' or any variation of it, I'ma punch you in that perfect jaw," Elliot said with a tilt of her head.

"I am, though," he smiled.

"No, you're not. And I'm not letting you wiggle your way outta this one. You don't want to be out there, fine. But you, of all people, can at least be honest with me. Between Tann and Addison playing a political tug of war with me in the middle, trying to show the angara that we're friendlies, trying to stop the kett from _exulting_ us all, trying to stop the rokaar from killing us all, the Archon being two steps ahead of me at every turn and searching for a place for all these people to go, I don't have it in me to do this dance with you. I barely have time to acknowledge that dad's dead, not that people don't keep throwing it in my face. So, please, Harry, just tell me why you gave up your spot on the Pathfinder team. I don't care what it is as long as it's the truth."

Harry knew that this conversation was coming, he was actually surprised that it took her this long. Though, to be fair, she'd been working her ass off since she woke from stasis with no real signs of slowing down. A trip to medical is about as much of a break as Elliot would allow herself to take back when they were all back in the Milky Way, it's only gotten worse since. He could tell, just by the tone of her messages, that she wasn't allowing herself time to rest or recharge. Not that Andromeda gave her much of a break.

Ever since they woke up in Helius, it's been one clusterfuck after another. Their golden world wasn't so golden. The Nexus had a civil war before the Hyperion arrived which ended with a good chuck of the initiative branded as exiles. The founder of this whole thing, Jien Garson, was dead and the eighth in line, Tann, had control. Alec died -admirably- to protect his daughter, leaving her with his role as Pathfinder and a near impossible cross to bear. Elliot, for all her inexperience, has been making good on the promise that Garson and Alec made, even if it was probably going to get her killed.

"I can't watch you die again." Harry couldn't look at her, his eyes focused on the parts of the Nexus he could see out the window. The 'I love you too much' went unsaid.

Most of it was a blur, Habitat 7, but what he does remember feeds the nightmares that keep him up at night. He remembers getting the comm from Kosta that Alec and Elliot went flying off a tall structure. He remembers SAM alerting him that both Ryder's vitals were erratic and declining. He remembers Elliot's helmet smashed all to hell on the deck and Alec's helmet firmly in place on her head. He remembers yanking her father's helmet off her head with shaking hands to breathe life into her when she stopped breathing on the shuttle back to the ship. And he remembers leaning against the wall outside the door of SAM Node after they finally got her stabilized.

It was hell. Every second of it.

"That's not to say that I don't have faith in you, because you know I do, it's just… You're more like your dad than you're not. You'd sacrifice yourself if it meant someone else, especially someone you care about, was safe from danger. I can't have a front row seat to that. Not again. It's better this way."

"Says who? I love Lexi but she's not _my_ doctor, you are." He was sure that anyone else would've missed the hint of possessiveness in her voice but he didn't. He couldn't.

"And I can't look at you objectively, El. I tried. On Habitat Seven… I just… Those minutes felt like hours..."

"Hey." Harry didn't even realize she'd moved until he felt her hands on his back. Elliot slowly slid her arms around his waist, pressing herself against him as she did. "I'm okay."

"No, you're not. You're tired and you aren't eating."

"I'm gonna kill, Lexi."

"Wasn't her. It was Kosta. He's worried about you. We all are," Harry told her.

"If you're so worried, you should come with us," she said with a chuckle against his shoulder. "I'm fine, okay? I may not be great but I'm alive and I'm here. That's gotta be worth something, right?"

"It is," he answered as he turned to wrap his arms around her. Elliot rested her head against his chest and hummed in contentment. "When do you have to go back?"

"I shouldn't even be here now. I have a list of things to do that's longer than my arm."

"You're gonna burn out if you don't slow down."

"I know. I'm just not good at delegating. Family trait," she chuckled. "You sure you don't want back on the roster? Tann'll sign off on it if I ask."

"I'm sure," Harry said, tucking her long black hair behind her ear. "Lexi is the better choice. And Eli… I don't trust anyone else to look after him. He's the only family you have left."

"Here I was thinking that I have you."

"Of course you do. That's one thing that Andromeda will never change."


	2. Something Only We Know

Work Text:

If she hadn't recognized the hand that grabbed her arm outside the cryobay, she would've sent him flying. As it was, Elliot was already in trouble -on a few fronts- and she knew it. So, she let herself get pulled into an office without a fight. For a long moment, he just looked at her, probably unsure of where to start.

"Before you say anything…" she said but he cut her off.

"You let SAM _kill_ you," Harry growled, his eyes hard. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"That the Archon had us trapped and the only way to reset the stasis field was to let SAM stop, then restart, my heart. I'm fine."

"No, you're not fine. Dammit, El, do you have any idea…?" he asked before running a hand through his hair. "When I saw your vitals tank..."

"You saw?" Elliot knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she never revoked Harry's access to the team's biometrics or to SAM. At first, it was just her refusal to accept his transfer. Then, she thought it was a good idea to have another doctor in the know, just in case. Maybe she should've thought that through. "Shit. I'm sorry, Harry. There was no way to avoid it."

"SAM and Lexi tried to explain."

"Really? Because Lexi flipped out on me. She flipped out on SAM too."

"Good. Maybe you'll both actually listen to her. Lord knows you don't listen to anyone else."

"Hey, that's not fair," she said. "Everyone keeps looking to me like I'm supposed to have the answers, then you all freak out when you don't like my decisions. I didn't ask to be pathfinder, I got stuck with it and I'm doing the best that I can. I made a choice, a choice that was mine to make. I don't need your permission or approval."

"I never said you did. I just think you keep forgetting that there are people, more than a few, who give a damn about you," Harry said.

"Is that what you honestly think? That I _forget_ that you care about me?"

"Sometimes."

"Then you obviously don't know me as well as you think you do," Elliot said quietly. Doesn't he know how she feels? She thought he did.

"No, I know you better than _you_ think I do."

Initially assigned to peacekeeping duties in the Alliance, Elliot was tapped to serve as support for a team of Prothean researchers. She spent years on different sites, learning about those who came before and the things they'd left behind. She could still remember what it felt like, the thrill of being on the brink of the next great discovery. That feeling was all but gone now, replaced by politics and handholding. Elliot went from being a recon specialist to… she didn't even know.

After their father's AI research took Elliot and Elias' Alliance careers down with his own, they all joined the Initiative. Harry was one of the first people that Alec picked for the pathfinder team and -it seemed- the only person who remembered that Elliot was as much a 'badass bookworm' as her father, Harry's words. They formed a completely innocent friendship born from long nights talking about scientific discoveries and advancements. Then her mother died.

Elliot doesn't remember how she got to Harry's that night, just that he let her without a word. They sat next to each other on his couch and stared at the walls for hours. It went on for days. She'd show up, he'd let her in and they'd sit in silence. Then, one day, she kissed him, a ton of conflicting feelings she didn't know what to do with spilling over. Ever the gentlemen, Harry broke the kiss and stepped away from her. He uttered three small words, ' _Not like this,_ ' then left her alone in his apartment. That's when she finally broke and cried herself to sleep.

She avoided him for a week until Eli broke her nose while sparring and she ended up in the medbay. It was beyond awkward, being that close to Harry while he fixed the damage to her face. Part of her wanted to hit him, part of her wanted to kiss him and part of her wanted to run. The part of her ready to bolt was winning the argument, then he touched her chin and forced her to look up at him.

' _I never said never. You're grieving and I won't take advantage of that. When everything is a little less raw, we can talk about it_ ," he'd said. They never did have that conversation. She honestly didn't think there was a need, then or now. Though she's as tight-lipped as any other member of the Ryder family, Harry always had the ability to see right through her.

"Okay, so maybe you do," she admitted. "It's just… You weren't there."

"We've had this conversation," he said.

"I know but that's not what I meant. I can't un-see what the Archon was doing to the Salarians. To Drack's scouts. He turned some of them into… I don't even know what. Can you imagine what would've happened if he got to experiment on me like he was planning to? What if he exulted me then unleashed me on our people? On you or Eli or Captain Dunn? Because I can. Harry, could you imagine having to put me down?"

He didn't say anything, the stricken look on his face told her more than enough.

"Look, full disclosure, there was a moment, a very brief moment, where I wished that SAM didn't bring me back. I just… wanted to be done with all this bullshit."

She didn't make this mess, she just inherited it. Her father was holding on to more secrets than a busy priest and Elliot was only just sorting through what Alec and Garson, the Initiative's founder, were up to. It was depressing, trying to fight battles on all sides, especially when they weren't even your battles. And, other than Harry and her team, she was sure that nobody ever considered how she might feel about any of this.

"Now, tell me something I don't know," Harry said plainly.

"I hate this."

"I know that too."

"I'm tired."

"Come on, El. You're slipping."

"I love you."

"You're not even trying, are you?" he asked with a small smile.

"Says the man who ran," Elliot countered. "I am okay, really. Lexi checked and double checked. Even if I wasn't, Tann really wouldn't care. He's got me jumping through hoops again."

"And yet, here you are."

"Well, I was going to check on Eli until you grabbed me. I got a message that he's awake. Unless that was just your way of getting me down here."

"I wouldn't do that to you. He's awake. Weak but in good spirits. Stubborn like every other Ryder I've ever met."

"What can I say, we're a determined bunch," she said with a smirk.

"Knew that too," Harry said, running his fingers over the scar running along her jaw.

"What am I gonna do with you, Doc?"

"As long as you don't die again, you can do whatever you want, Pathfinder."


End file.
